Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

EVENTS

The Justifications for Liberal Schadenfreude

Katherine Goldstein writes at Slate magazine that “Liberal schadenfreude is out of control.” Citing a handful of juvenile tweets of people telling Republicans to “suck it,” she says it’s downright unseemly for liberals to react with glee to last week’s election results, and that it only serves to divide us.

But I began to notice, both in media coverage and in social media networks, that Obama supporters were not just thrilled that our guy won—folks were insanely, morbidly happy that all Republicans were miserable. And they weren’t just picking on easy and legitimate punching bags like Karl Rove and Donald Trump. Lindy West of Jezebel wrote a blog post entitled “My Ten Favorite Kinds of Right Wing Temper Tantrums” in which she proudly declared, “I am just 99 percent completely fucking delighted by every single weepy right-wing temper tantrum. I can’t stop hate-reading. I can’t stop.” A blogger for The Daily Koswrote, “So please know, my fervid conservative friends, that I am temporarily suspending the empathic sensibility that generally informs most of us on the left. I am not laughing with you, in other words, since you seem capable of neither doubt nor self-deprecation. I am laughing at you. You are welcome to join me.” Someone created a Tumblr called White People Mourning Romney. It isn’t particularly interesting or clever, unless you just like photos of your fellow Americans crying or looking disappointed, but people sent in dozens of submissions. Judging by the number of delighted notes on each post, these photos fill many liberal hearts with glee. Mary Elizabeth Williams from Salon concludes it’s OK to meanly gloat because we New Yorkers need a reason to be happy after having such a tough time with Sandy.

But I think she’s missing the point, at least for the gloating I’ve done. First of all, the glee has little to do with Obama winning; I didn’t vote for him in 2008, I didn’t vote for him this time, and I’ve been a vocal critic of many of his policies from the start (and I’m certainly not going to stop). I’m not thrilled that Obama was elected president again. In fact, I’m appalled that the lesser of two evils is really the best we can do.

But I was, and remain, positively giddy that Romney lost. That’s partly because I have no doubt that he would have been far worse than Obama, wrong in all the same ways Obama is and a lot more wrong in most other areas. But it’s also because the right wing absolutely deserves our derisive laughter because, with all the legitimate criticisms that can and must be aimed at Obama’s worst policies, the right has offered little but the most idiotic and delusional criticisms instead.

Yes, Obama was born here. No, he isn’t going to take away your guns. No, he isn’t a Marxist, a communist or a socialist (and if you had any clue at all what those terms mean, you’d know that). No, he isn’t a Muslim. And he didn’t go on an “apology tour.” And health care reform is not going to lead to the Fourth Reich (believe it or not, Hitler did not kick off the final solution by first making sure the Jews had access to health care). And he isn’t going to give the UN control of all local zoning decisions. And he isn’t moving 100 million Muslims to the United States, or plotting to enforce Sharia law in America. Those things aren’t just wrong, they’re insane. They’re utterly delusional.

Add to that the absurd narrative that Fox News and right wing pundits, big and small, have pushed for the last few months, that the polling companies and the “liberal media” were conspiring to make it look like Obama was likely to win the election when, in reality, Romney was going to win a landslide. This isn’t just schadenfreude, though it’s partly that. It’s also glee that the right lost despite making some of the most deranged claims imaginable over the last few years, which they’ve only doubled down on since last Tuesday.

Yes, I’m pointing and laughing and mocking the hell out of them for all of this. And I do so unapologetically. And as long as they continue behaving that way, I’m going to continue to ridicule them without mercy. You should too.

If she had to listen to the wingnuts where I work she’d understand why I so enjoy telling them to “suck it”.

This morning I am informed that 191,000 (R only of course) votes in Ohio magically ‘disappeared’, giving Obama the win. My response that even if Ohio went to Rmoney he still lost the Presidential election went down like a lead balloon, along with my “suck it” comment. These RWA’s just don’t get it and I wonder if they ever will.

Did Goldstein listen or read any of the campaign “speeches” made by the “I hate gays” and “women are stupid sluts” and “I’m angry and resentful that my special white people’s privileges might be taken away” party? If she did, she, too, might find it hard to resist that these people actually deserve to be miserable.

Ohio really did go to President Obama last night. And he really did win. And he really was born in Hawaii. And he really is legitimately president of the United States, again.

And the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not make up a fake unemployment rate last month. And the Congressional Research Service really can find no evidence that cutting taxes on rich people grows the economy. And the polls were not skewed to oversample Democrats. And Nate Silver was not making up fake projections about the election to make conservatives feel bad. Nate Silver was doing math.

And climate change is real. And rape really does cause pregnancy sometimes. And evolution is a thing.

And Benghazi was an attack on us, it was not a scandal by us. And nobody is taking away anyone`s guns. And taxes have not gone up. And the deficit is dropping, actually.

And Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction. And the moon landing was real. And FEMA is not building concentration camps. And U.N. election observers are not taking over Texas. And moderate reforms of the regulations on the insurance industry and the financial services industry in this country are not the same thing as communism.

Ed, you have hit the nail exactly on the head. With all the perfectly valid, completely factual and entirely documented reasons to criticize and/or oppose president Obama, why on god’s green earth do Conservatives feel the need to MAKE CRAP UP!?

I don’t doubt the existence of reflexive, unthinking Democratic or liberal partisans.

But I think most liberal/progressive types want there to be reasonable alternatives among political parties in the US (although we may not all agree that a conservative party is a reasonable alternative).

Hell, if nothing else, the case of two parties which are otherwise identical in policy & political temperament is still better than having only one such party, because at least there’s a potential check on corruption and other misbehaviour.

But I suspect a lot of Republican/conservative partisans in the US don’t share that desire. (OK, I don’t just suspect that, I’m fairly convinced of it.) They don’t want alternatives for the sake of democractic best practice. They want to abolish or destroy any political opposition.

I think that attitude is shameful and has no place in a modern pluralist democracy. And as such, it is only fair, IMO, to be publicly relieved, even gleeful, at the failure of the blatantly, flagrantly authoritarian movement that comprises the Republican Party and what passes for mainstream conservatism in the US today.

The pleasure I get is not from their* disappointment that Romney lost, but from their disappointment that their strategy failed.

If the Tea Party Republicans lived in reality, and ran a legitimate opposition campaign against the President and in favor of Romney, I would empathize with their loss. But instead, they have ruined our political climate purely as a strategy they thought would help them, and I can’t empathize with such madness.

With all of that said though, I refuse to gloat, and instead have been trying to get local Republicans that I know to see the silver lining by pointing out that the state (Michigan) and county (Livingston) races went almost entirely in their favor.

Just a slight variation on Ed’s point. I don’t think the focus has really been ‘our policy for four more years, not your policy.’ Its ‘your pundits were shown to be idiots or lying to you. Either way, hopefully this will teach you to stop listening to them.’

Look, when a Fox news anchor has to take Karl Rove in the back and let him talk/see Fox’s vote analysis, because Rove implies that the Fox news show he is on is part of a liberal conspiracy to underrepresent Romney votes, then the conversation has really stopped being about tax policy. Its now about just how crazy Rove and people like him are being. When George Will predicts a Romney landslide and is so badly wrong, the conversation is no longer about whether abortion should be legal; its about Will’s ability to accurately gauge public opinion. To wit: he can’t, or he’s unwilling to do so. Same thing with Rove: he’s shown that either he can’t accurately gauge public opinion, or he doesn’t want to. And the same goes for unskewed and a large number of right-leaning pundits and news sources.

Tl:dr version – the crowing is not about the GOP losing, its about their Baghdad Bob-like behavior in the face of loss.

This morning I am informed that 191,000 (R only of course) votes in Ohio magically ‘disappeared’, giving Obama the win.

You mean that they think Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, who had been pulling every trick out of his hat to try and supress the vote of of anyone not a reliably Republican shade of pink, is actually a secret Obama operative? The conspiracy goes very, very deep! Maybe they should all quit their jobs and go undercover to root it out!

Add to that the absurd narrative that Fox News and right wing pundits, big and small, have pushed for the last few months, that the polling companies and the “liberal media” were conspiring to make it look like Obama was likely to win the election when, in reality, Romney was going to win a landslide.

This right here. Call me petty all you want, my favorite part of the election was watching the people who swore by “unskewing” or crowd excitement or the number of bumper stickers they saw having to justify their terribly inaccurate predictions. As far as I’m concerned, Nate Silver won this election as much as Obama did.

Any party that acts in bad faith deserves continual ridicule where the GOP has earned more than ridicule but also our condemnation.

I’m incredibly impressed at how much the Democratic party has improved itself in its ability to govern over the past couple of decades. One has only to look at Michigan to see how bad they once were, though conservative policies in the 1990s and since have insured our continued degradation. I think if the Democrats had enjoyed a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate in 2009-2010 we’d have observed some incredible results, in spite of the fact I think most of their policies are sub-optimal. That’s because I think our current policies are so bad that even decent policies, not great ones, would lead to impressive results.

However I wonder how long Democrats can remain competent. How can the Democrats continue to improve when its competition isn’t legitimately challenging them but instead off in a different reality promoting policies we know would cause catastrophic results? This is where I share common ground with Rachel Maddow on the argument she made last Wed. evening that Katherine Lorraine refers to @ 4. It’s why I stayed in the party from the time I realized the Gingrich-led party in the mid-90s was headed down a dangerous path all the way up to 2008, in hopes of playing a small part in the party’s reform. Positive reform I now conclude isn’t merely unlikely, but impossible in the near- and even intermediate-term.

Considering that the Rmoney campaign, as well as most of the Republican candidacies for lesser office this cycle, were essentially a big FUCK YOU!!! to the rational, intelligent, sane and civil segment of our population, I feel no regrets reveling in schadenfreude after their resounding & humiliating defeat. If some people feel butthurt because of that, then they need to reevaluate their sensibilities.

This morning I am informed that 191,000 (R only of course) votes in Ohio magically ‘disappeared’, giving Obama the win.

You might point out to them that such claims without evidence are a form of “inferred justification”, and point them at (doi:10.1111/j.1475-682X.2009.00280.x) by Prasad et alia. The canonical resolve is a subscription link, but there seems to be a free copy here.

Other conservative responses that are seeming exhibited in response are Selective Exposure (tuning out and pretending that Obama didn’t just win with a numerically higher “mandate” than Dubya ever had himself), Attitude Bolstering (repeating assorted previously-held conservative platitudes to re-inforce their beliefs against change from the event), and some rare Bayesian Updating (which, oddly, Rove’s Kübler-Ross stages might fall under, gradually recognizing that it happened). There’s also a bit of Source Derogation — EG, whining about what awful people the libs are for pointing out that the election was won by Obama, and that Romney proved a lot less competitive than most conservatives were claiming right through when the election was called the other way.

One rational motive for open mockery by liberals would be the practical value of such mockery as a social signal of derogation of the conservatives’ refusal to recognize empirical reality — both before, and after. There’s plenty of room inside zones of sanity to argue about whether the outcome was a good thing or a bad one; there’s rather less room to argue about whether or not the election happened.

This election showed a pretty clear rejection of the Tea Party. SSM was upheld for the first time in referendums. The rape-is-dandy candidates lost big in states where they shouldn’t have lost. Alan West lost. Michelle Bachman almost lost. We voted against eliminating government services for those that need it most. We voted against cutting women’s health services because we don’t think ladyparts are as icky as the right makes them out to be. We voted against corporate billionaires buying the elections. I’d say we have a lot to be gleeful about, especially after years of the “left-wing” media declaring liberalism to be dead and the Tea Party being the new center.

I think if the Democrats had enjoyed a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate in 2009-2010 we’d have observed some incredible results, in spite of the fact I think most of their policies are sub-optimal

Call me a cynic, but I think what would’ve happened with a filibuster-proof Senate majority is exactly what did happen the last time they had a regular Senate majority: infighting until the last second, then a struggle to get anything passed/done.

If its any consolation, I’m dismal about CA for the same reason. Many (if not all) of the democratic representatives are going to see their supermajority as an opportunity to extract concessions on the other Dems. Its sort of a prisoner’s dilemma situation: all of them can win big if they cooperate. But for any given bill and any given rep, that rep wins more by holding their vote for ransom and getting concessions rather than just cooperating.

I’d also add that the mockery has a purpose in discouraging barbarism. We don’t like rape apologists, and we want them to feel ashamed, shunned, and otherwise excluded. We want to make it clear such ideas have no place in a civilized society. In that sense, mockery is a tool we’re using to maintain basic morality.

Ed lists a lot of Republican presumptions which are false, he includes this one in the list:

No, he isn’t going to take away your guns.

I don’t think this one deserves to be in the list, at least not when it’s framed so broadly. I realize that the president has spent zero political capital to restrict gun rights through legislation or regulation. I also know that the DOJ under the direction of the President is also lax in enforcing the current gun restriction laws on the books.

However I also know that the type of justices the president would nominate to the Supreme Court would be the type of justices that would have most likely voted with the minority in the two recent gun right cases considering the constitutionality of prohibiting guns. I’m pro-gun control and advocate people should have voted for Mr. Obama solely on the types of justices and judges he’d nominate to the federal judiciary. But I have to concede that gun rights advocates have reason to conclude this president could act in a way that subsequently result in millions of Americans effectively being prohibited from exercising their gun rights where they live.

I think it’s very likely those very justices he’d nominate or have nominated would not vote to prohibit guns now that we have two recent precedents on an issue were few precedents exist. That they’d instead respect precedent. However I think a compelling argument exists they might not, especially if a future case was linked to a national tragedy with a lot of political heat. Therefore including this item on the list weakens an argument where they are so wrong on all the other premises mentioned, like their denial climate change and how tax rate changes impact federal revenue.

This issue also is one where the president talks out of both sides of his mouth, a characteristic I’ve rarely observed with him except on this issue and some 4th and 5th Amendment issues and perhaps a few others which have escaped my attention. That’s because he argues that the 2nd Amendment does protect a right to own guns while simultaneously siding with the dissent in both recent gun cases where the laws prohibited, not merely restricted, the right to bear arms in certain localities.

The pleasure I get is not from their* disappointment that Romney lost, but from their disappointment that their strategy failed

I am amused not by their disappointment but by their shock. I could empathise with disappointment at a loss, but its the, “How could this have happened?” when it was fairly clear for a while that it would happen.

I don’t think the focus has really been ‘our policy for four more years, not your policy.’ Its ‘your pundits were shown to be idiots or lying to you. Either way, hopefully this will teach you to stop listening to them.’

This. For years, decades even, we’ve watched as the Republicans’ devotion to ideology over facts rendered them increasingly unable to govern effectively. Now that we see the same thing is starting to prevent them from campaigning effectively, I can’t help but rejoice. We got an inkling of it in 2008 with McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as running mate. The embarrassment of conservative pundits in the 2012 election was confirmation that this phenomenon is real and significant. I had previously assumed that the upper echelons of the conservative movement never believed their own BS, now it appears I was wrong, and I’m glad for it.

I would also add that the conservative base has made itself immune to facts and reasoning. The correctness of its views is bolstered not by external verification, but by social reinforcement. Mockery is the means by which we can crack that shell of self-righteousness. They justify the rejection of unfavorable data to themselves by assuring themselves they’re the intelligent ones, the clear thinkers, the morally upright and productive citizens who make the country run. Before you can get them to consider any other fact, you must first make them ask the question: “What if I’m actually the idiot here?”

there’s laughing at someone slipping on a banana peel they threw at you: that’s Mario Kart

Then there’s laughing at someone slipping on a banana peel they threw at you after spending weeks boasting that this banana peel you sends you straight to the ER, then whining about the banana peel not working normaly, then getting up and slipping on another banana peel they threw at you; then coming up with a conspiracy theory about you sabotaging their banana stock, then getting up slipping again on a third banana peel: that’s what’s happening right now.

The GOPers deserve all the ridicule they get, and I for one plan on piling on more. They tried to cheat their way to the White House for Pete’s sake by supressing voters in areas unfriendly to them! They ran a basically fake, Gish-galloping candidate who had nothing but bluster and a big wallet. “Vote for me, I’m not Obama, I’ve got a plan to make everything great, but I’m not going to tell you what it is, it’s too complicated, but trust me, it fits right in with what this group thinks, never mind that I told a group with contradictory views the same thing yesterday”

That sort of thing can’t be allowed. Democracy can’t function like that, and everyone complicit in promoting that trash deserves all the egg we can get on their faces.

And they are STILL at it! Go read the blogs: Obama cheated, America was too stupid to vote GOP, they just need to polish that turd of policy more, present it more gently to those stupid women, and vivtory will be theirs. Fuck right off, every one of you democracy-hating tards.

There are three perfectly good justifications for the current liberals’ exultant crowing: first, the Republicans weren’t just wrong, they were ASSHOLES, every step of the way, and the liberals’ crowing is an appropriate, and long-pent-up, response to assholish behavior; second, the Republicans were, and still are, in a completely separate bubble-verse from the rest of us, and people in that depth of denial really need to be pounded with the truth, not just politely reminded; and third, loud liberal crowing is a necessary countarbalance to the MSM’s concerted silence on so many of the issues and events we’ve been trying to talk about for, what, three decades and counting now? We’re being obnoxious now because we observe that being polite and quiet only got us ignored.

And speaking of MSM silence on important issues, here’s a bit in Salon about some important liberal victories in the education arena that I, for one, didn’t hear about from the big three networks:

The one-percenters’ campaign to defund public schools, break teachers’ unions, and privatize public education got smacked down in THREE STATES last week. Yes, we’re starting to see through their anti-public-education “reform” rhetoric too. And yes, that’s something worth gloating about. SUCK IT, SCOPS!

For me at least the “White People Mourning Romney” Tumblr was for the most part more of a melancholy, contemplative thing, a reminder that while the guy I preferred prevailed, the side you’re rooting for is going to lose sometimes. It’s this weird little poem about the effects of the loss on human beings, and kind of beautiful in a sad way.

I am experiencing less liberal schadenfraude, and more skeptical schadenfraude. It’s not so much that Romney lost; it’s that these fuckin’ idiots were so convinced that there was going to be a Romney landslide, even when all evidence pointed to the contrary, and then they were legitimately shocked when it didn’t happen. They were believing their own bullshit. That both offends me and amuses me.

In a parallel universe where the polls were all dictating a narrow but solid Obama win (i.e. the reverse situation), and if there were liberals who were just as stupidly predicting an Obama landslide up until the 11th hour — well, I admit I would take less joy in mocking them, but I wouldn’t be any less derisive.

I admit this is somewhat of a character flaw on my part, but nevertheless: The greed, the racism, the short-sightedness, the misogyny and homophobia, the theocratic leanings, all of that I can take… but the reality denial just offends me on some core level. :D

I’m with a lot of the people here- I’m not (well, after a day or so) enjoying the tears of rank-and-file Republicans who are just upset that their guy lost and are getting over it. That’s just one of the disappointments of life, and there but for the hammer of Thor go I.

The people I can’t stop mocking are the loonies burying gold on their property while screaming that democracy is over, the Republic has fallen, and it’s only a matter of time before UN black helicopters drag the Christians off to the abortionplex for their Agenda 21 re-education and mandatory gay marriage. These people are unhinged and deserve only ridicule.

I was positively gleeful that the majority of voters went with Obama. And I have no problem rubbing it in to those who were positively sure Mittens would clean the floor with obama.

After 4 years of being called every possible name in the book, including the N word, and, both directly and indirectly, calling those of us who supported the president traitorous and anti-American, it feels so damn good to watch these people in such pain. And being able to salt the wounds is especially delicious.

Another good reason for all the liberal gloating: the people we elected need to be reminded that a) they have a MANDATE to actually DO THINGS WE WANT, not just add their seats to the “D” column, and b) there really is a vocal active core of liberals who will actually join whatever fights they get into. Noisy advocacy really does work, so we’d damn well better not let the teatards be the only ones making noise.

Abb3w: Or, more philosophically: if you can’t accurately evaluate how the world IS, your assessments of what OUGHT to be done become proportionately suspect.

I doubt anyone’s claim to a moral motivation if they also reject science, statistics, and empiricism in general. If you reject information that is readily available, or even presented to you, you can’t possibly know what the right thing to do would be. If you deny medical science, for example, and withhold vaccinations from your children, then your primary values are not helping them grow into the best possible people, but rather self-deceptive platitudes that help you avoid unpleasant truths, or tribal identity, or some such.

So not only is George Will’s prescriptive diatribes unreliable, I reject his claim to even be trying for them. He doesn’t care what the right thing is, or at least, not nearly as much as status in the tribe or warm fuzzies or whatever.

John Scalzi, whom I respect a great deal, has said that if you’re still indulging anti-Republican Schadenfreude, you’re an asshole.

Well,

1) I’ve never pretended NOT to be an asshole; and

2) the current Republican Party, as others have already documented in abundance, is bat-crack crazy, and in some ways positively malevolent–and so I think it undeserving of the usual decencies. When they return to sanity and some measure of probity, I’ll reconsider my savage glee at every well-deserved defeat they suffer.

Yes, exactly! And the stimulus really did create jobs. Those lists could go on and on, down to the trivial like, “preferring Dijon mustard to French’s really isn’t a mark of bad character.”

But I would remind Katherine Goldstein of just one: Mitch McConnell’s declared goal from the first days of President Obama’s first term. Imagine the gloating we would have seen had that been achieved!

With respect to how things actually turned out, personally I did a little gloating and I probably will do a little more when the opportunity presents itself. But here’s the thing: Democrats as a whole will gloat, then they will stop gloating and buckle down to making government work. Will Republicans join them in that effort, or will they nurse their bitterness and start a divisive campaign for 2016?

I’m usually the weenie reminding folks that it’s not good to take joy at the suffering of others. Well, I can’t say liberal schadenfreude is out of place or inappropriate. I’ve been loving every minute of it. Its beyond any doubt that the RWA / (R) / foxian-repeater-bots have been using force to push their denial of reality on everyone else for years now. This election was reality biting them in the ass and they earned every quip, barb and /point &/laugh they got, are getting, and will get for weeks and months to come.

I fully expect to look back at this election as a glimmer of hope whenever the national psyche is again rooted in fear and loathing sure to have been whipped there by the same asshats who are squealing like so many Ned Beattys just now*.

*and yes that’s me imagining my foes in a humiliating position. As noted in this comment thread, it’s likely not possible to be disproportionate when mocking them about this election.

I find that I’m not nearly so interested in gloating as I am watching the post-disaster games play out — and since some mea culpas are in order, I’ll indulge in the guilty pleasure of being proven right: lots of talk about tokens and marketing makeovers from the nominal leadership of the Party, with lots of “up yours!” and doubling down from the Base and from the real leaders like Rushbo.

The type of response I’d like to see is if reasonable policies get enacted and make this country a better place. And if the repubs continue to stifle progress, vote more of them out.

Reminds me of reffing water polo. When a player whines, they get excluded from the game for 20 seconds. On the third exclusion, they’re out for the game. If they whine after any other type of exclusion, they’re out for the game. You concentrate on the game or you’re out.